As part of the Covid-19 lock-down activities I (like many wargamers I suspect) have been going through their collections musing over past, present and twinkle in the eye projects. You may also be like myself who nervously hears their beloved spouse mentioning "de-cluttering" in bewitching tones. Palpation and cold sweats follow as I hurriedly tidy piles of things, one of which being old tattered "but loved" magazines, that flip open at beguiling pages. One of which was Wargames World #3 dating back to 1989 (see below, in classic [now faded] yellow but still in relatively good condition - not my original I may hasten to add but one picked up either from a Wargames Show or cast-off from a friend):
It has several great articles, one of which is by Ian Drury entitled "Where was the Navy?" in 1914 - that is the Royal Navy, when the Germans (HSF) were shelling Scarborough, which has inspired me in several ways to invigorate my flirtation with WWI naval gaming - again, as I have had several "false starts" (see below, the title that got the wheels of my mind turning - good question I thought, read on I thought, to find out more, and I did and I was happy):
It also came with an uncomplicated map of the North Sea theater of operations (see below, and remember that these were the days before the Internet, Google Maps and indeed desktop publishing; wargaming aids like these were gold dust - you can almost imagine the fleets of armchair admirals salivating with "map pins" primed in sweaty hands):
With a certain spooky serendipity a long standing naval wargaming enthusiast friend had also just emailed me with a solo lock-down battle report using David Manly's recent WWI rule-set (1918) which he had found 'very playable' (he had done the Jutland "Run to the South Scenario" with his Hallmark 1/6000 ships) - these newer rules were used over the default venerable General Quarters 2 (GQ2) set (see below, "Si Vis Pacem" - to my shame - I still have "not read" despite having printed them out two years ago):
It was just too much fro me to take and I launched (literally) into obsessively thinking about my fleets of 1/3000 Navwar battlecruisers in the loft, the ladder came down and up I went in "search and rescue" mode (see below, although I flinched when I saw "how I did waves" back in the day, there was a wave [unintentional pun] of nostalgia as these tiny ships took me back well over twenty years when I first started collecting them - amazingly they are cheaper per ship that the Hallmark ships a quarter the volume, I am a fan of the chunkier chaps - even wanting to go so much bigger and have a go at Fletcher Prat in 1/1200 at CoW [Conference of Wargamers] someday [are you listening Tim Gow?]):
Not satisfied with the toys I turned once again to the book shelf. A useful addition to my naval library was an Osprey title called "British Battlecruiser vs German Battlecruiser 1914-16" which covered Dogger Bank and Jutland battles (interesting leaving out Falklands, but I guess you could say [although covered by a seperate Osprey Campaign book] was British Battlecruisers vs German Armoured Cruisers) in some detail (see below, I am a sitting duck for a book with battleships or battlecruisers firing at each other on the front cover):
Reading through the Dogger Bank section gave me great delight (a copy of The Rules of the Game by Andrew Gordon also nostalgically winks at me for another read from my bookshelf) and the urge to re-fight this classic stern chase (although it could have ended up so many different ways if you incorporated map moves in it too). As Ian Drury pointed out in his 1989 article most of the major naval actions fought in the North Sea started with meeting engagements and clashes of battlecruisers with more of the "threat of" battle fleets of dreadnoughts appearing over the horizon (see below, my fevered scribbled notes after reading The Duel's section on Dogger Bank - it has to be done, even solo):
Although I have an unread (as yet) copy of Castles of Steel by Robert K Massie sitting on my shelf, Ian Drury also makes another good point about excellent "of the time" sources available, i.e. Marder's volumes of "Dreadnought to Scapa Flow" and Julian Corbett's volumes of "Naval Operations". That seems at odds with my spouses desire to de-clutter but the magic of a Kindle may come to the rescue as certainly Marder's volumes are available electronically. Watch this space as I think this project has yet to run its full course!
